Mid-ROTJ. Obviously a bit AU. References "Sweetheart." Very very mild allusions to sexual violence at the end.

Invulnerable

"Well. Yell, scream, say something. Anything."

In retrospect they might have predicted it if they were paying closer attention, but one of them was pretty ill at the time and none of them were particularly attuned to reading hair for cues. And she was always a bit odd about her hair, anyway – something religious, something about modesty, something about being unmarried or never having had sex – well in retrospect in probably wasn't that – no one really knew, though, and certainly no one was going to ask.

Still – the way on the speeder back to the Falcon she'd been tugging at that high twisted ponytail probably should've been noted, how she pulled at it and made faces like it was an itch she couldn't scratch, how she kept moving to pat down braids and flinching at what she found instead, how she cringed whenever it brushed up against her.

But, you know, there was her pale and puking boyfriend to be concerned with, and also the fact that she was wearing almost nothing at all underneath the borrowed vest and shirt. And they sure as hell were not going to ask her about that. She'd let Luke cut the collar around her neck immediately, it became very obvious that she did not want Han to know it had ever existed, but she hadn't been about to strip otherwise.

As Lando and Chewie helped her help Han onto the Falcon she kept doing it, though, twitching her hands around her hair, yanking at it like a spasm or a seizure, scrunching up her nose like something smelled. Which was true – namely, all of them – but probably not the reason for her distaste.

And then she slipped into Han's cabin and was with him for a long time, speaking softly, emerging only to retrieve cutters that she needed his help to use. Bumping into Lando on her way to put them back, holding them up with a morbid little smile. "You'd think they'd want it to be easier to take off, wouldn't you? Though maybe that's the fun of it…" He'd mostly choked in response – what the hell was he supposed to say to that?

And still that high pony, her fingers playing with it angrily almost like she didn't know she was doing it, tugging and peeved like at a tag on the inside of a shirt. Drowning in Han's clothes, the collar of the t-shirt not hiding the angry red welts around her neck. Finally Lando mustered up his courage and asked, trying to be casual, "Hairdo not too comfortable, I take it?"

She made that same little smile. "I don't like having it how they did it but I don't want to be forced into taking it down in order to change it."

That did not clear much up for him at all, but he nodded like he understood.

"It's a very clever catch-22 for someone from – where I'm from. Although I doubt they're particularly partial to Alderaanians – surely it's an accident? And anyway, what fun would it be to break in the already broken, am I right?"

"Princess, I––…"

He'd trailed off, hoping she'd interrupt and cover over his inability to articulate everything he wanted to say to her, but she was going to let him finish the sentence, apparently.

"I – I'm sorry you were in those – conditions."

"Don't be sorry, par for the course. I've so appreciated your help these last few months. And anyway, those circumstances were far better than the ones under which we met. Though I think I looked a bit better under the first – or worse, depending on your preferences I suppose."

"I––"

"I should get back to Han. Let me know if there's any more I can do to help out here?"

"Why don't you let me know if there's anything I can do to––"

"No, that's not – actually, do you carry a knife?"

"A – knife?"

"Yes, do you carry a knife? A blade…?"

"Ah – yes, here." He handed it to her, puzzled but eager to do anything to make this conversation less awful and depressing. "Is there something you need––"

"No, I've got it, thank you. I won't do anything stupid with it, promise. I'll only be a few minutes."

The hardened princess slipped to the 'fresher, closing the door loudly behind her. Lando swore under his breath – he'd seen Leia weary and anxious and even despairing before, but never this angry, icy way that others had often told him about. And those welts on her neck…

Just then, Han wandered into the lounge, looking pale and confused but not altogether awful, all things considered. "Hey – where'd she go?" he mumbled.

"'Fresher," Lando said, helping him to a seat and not about to add with my knife I gave her because she asked and I felt really bad for her and didn't want to ask questions.

Han grunted. "She – got thin," he muttered. "Six months…"

"She was damn worried about you. Didn't sleep much, was nonstop. You're a lucky man."

Han scowled. "Could've worried about me while eating lunch."

Lando wasn't about to leave his half-blind friend alone wandering the ship, so he sat beside him and waited, awkwardly, for Leia's return to from the 'fresher. She was taking a long time, long enough that he was beginning to worry… what could she be doing in there with a knife?

And then, suddenly, there she was, knife in one hand. And in the other? Her long ponytail, severed from what was now a severe, cropped, angular haircut.

Han couldn't see much but he could see that, Lando could tell by the way he jerked back almost violently. Probably could also see the way that, without the ever-present frame of thick girlish hair, her face looked thinner and more severe, cheekbones terse and sharp, eyes dark and deadly.

"Well," she said mildly, gazing back at them. "Yell, scream, say something. Anything."

Both men continued to stare at her.

Leia's mouth twitched, something between amusement and displeasure. "I mean, is it that bad?"

"Sweetheart," Han croaked out – "sweetheart, your hair––"

"I wasn't going to take it down for them, and I wasn't going to leave it like they wanted," she said tightly, moving to return the knife to Lando. He took it from her – her palms were cold. "And besides it's from a place – a place I'm not from anymore. So."

"Princess…" Han was reaching for her and she moved to him obediently, letting him stroke the short, fragile edges of her new cut.

"I am sick of washing fascist cum out of my braids," she whispered, her low voice deadly serious and probably meant for Han's ears only. "I am done."

He flinched with his whole body but kept stroking her short locks as if to ground himself. "Leia… Leia…"

"Do you hate it?"

"No, I… No. I don't hate it."

"I feel a lot better," she said, stepping back to run her fingers up and down the long length of braid in her hands. "Less vulnerable."

He pressed his face to her hair and inhaled deeply, said nothing.

"Maybe when your sight is better, you can fix the back for me?" she offered quietly. "It's almost definitely very uneven."

"Yeah," he said slowly, also looking down at that long braid, its full length resting in her hands like a corpse between them. "Yeah, I can do that."

For the record, Carrie rocked short hair.